Mary Lou Krosnick Receives Florida State Music Teachers Association's Highest Award

FSMTA’s Excellence in Teaching award is the highest and most prestigious award conferred by this organization and is reserved for its most outstanding teachers based on criteria such as teaching and professional achievement, student success, participation and accomplishments in local, state, and national programs, and community involvement.

We are honored to present the award this year to a most distinguished and extraordinary teacher and performer, Mrs. Mary Lou Wesley Krosnick of Jacksonville.

Mrs. Krosnick, the daughter of a Juilliard alumnus, made her debut performance at age 14, when she won the NY Philharmonic Symphony Society’s Young Composers Contest with her composition The Rain Comes, which was later performed in Carnegie Hall.

She is an internationally acclaimed performing and recording pianist who, in her own words, “specializes in performing challenging, mostly major and virtuosic works by recognized masters of classical literature,” and was a former soloist with Boston Pops under Arthur Fiedler and the Jacksonville Symphony under Willis Page. She has performed at Carnegie Hall and Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., and was a national winner for the Teachers Division of the International Recording Competition and National Guild of Piano Teachers. She has been a recording artist for the Musical Heritage Society and Florida Public Radio in addition to being a featured soloist at Rome Festival in Italy for three summers. She was included in the 2006 edition of Great Women of the 21st Century, which only recognizes 1000 women in the entire world.

Mrs. Krosnick’s contributions in music education have been many and great. She holds degrees from Juilliard, Yale, and the University of Wisconsin and began teaching at Jacksonville University in 1978, where she still holds the distinguished artist-in- residence title. She developed her own pedagogy for structurally analyzing and then tackling technical challenges resulting in a meticulous methodology for teaching her piano students. She served as Head of piano faculty at Sewannee Summer Music Center for 11 years, and most recently was selected as one of “75 Distinguished Dolphins”, in honor of Jacksonville University’s 75th anniversary, for having been deemed to have made the greatest contribution to school and community. She has produced multiple student winners in local, state, and national competitions (the list is 4 pages long covering 30 years), with an impressive record of 25 straight years of having winning students in FSMTA District IV competitions. She is nationally certified by MTNA, a published author, and has been recognized by the Arts in Education Program sponsored by FL Dept. of State.

Martha Mier is an internationally recognized composer and clinician who joined Alfred Music Publishing in 1989. Her educational piano music for students of all levels has made her one of today's most popular composers. Students worldwide enjoy playing her music, including the popular Jazz, Rags & Blues series and the Romantic Impressions series.

Martha graduated from Florida State University, where she was a member of Sigma Alpha Iota, the national honorary music fraternity. Martha owned a piano studio in Lake City, FL for many years and has been active in church music and as a professional accompanist. She is a member of the Music Teachers National Association, the Florida State Music Teachers Association, and the National Guild of Piano Teachers. Martha is a state and nationally certified teacher of piano through these professional organizations.

Martha is a frequent clinician and adjudicator, having presented workshops for teachers in Australia and New Zealand and in the United States at the Music Teachers National Association Conference, the National Piano Teachers Institute, the World Piano Pedagogy Conference and numerous state MTA conventions. Many of her solos and collections were chosen for the National Federation of Music Clubs Junior Festival Bulletin. She is a co-author of Alfred's Premier Piano Course and more than 200 other educational piano publications.

Back-to-back Fellows ~ Lenny Mastrogiacomo & Martha Mier

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